Often when a new client engages us for Adwords search advertising, they usually engage an SEO agency at the same time.

Simultaneously working on both paid and unpaid Search makes complete sense from a project management point of view, but from an SEO point of view, which keywords do you optimise your site for?

This apparently simple question was made even more difficult since Google removed organic keyword results from Analytics – so the keywords chosen then become a best guesstimate from either the brand or the SEO agency.

The final straw sets in when, months later, it turns out that the keywords your site converts on are different to the keywords your site is optimised for – leaving you with a less than optimal site and the task of having to undo/redo your SEO.

Rather than start Adwords and SEO at the same time (or worse, start with SEO then do Adwords later), start with Adwords first then SEO your site based on learnings from Adwords. Here’s a few reasons why:

• Fast: Adwords can start bringing visitors to your site within an hour of starting (assuming adequate search volume for your keywords)
• Budget: You define how much or how little you want to spend each day and over what period. You can even turn Adwords off if you’re satisfied with early results.
• Control: You define the exact search keywords you think would make for good traffic. Keep (and bid up on) keywords that work. Pause (or bid lower) for keywords that don’t.
• Split Test: Everything can be split tested to expose winning Keywords, product appeal, price points, landing page design etc
• Optimisation: Feed your winners & starve your losers to optimise and clean up your website funnel over time

Allow a period of 3 months to structure, test and optimise, taking into account any daily and weekly seasonalities in search behaviour.

By starting with Adwords, you’ll be provided with the real set of converting keywords you can now confidently pass on to any SEO agency to then optimise your organic search rankings for.

Should the SEO agency do their job, you may not even need paid Search advertising after that!

First Adwords, then SEO.